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A ‘working group’ to produce a report on the media in Wales which proclaims there should be “access to trustworthy, high-quality information”, has on it people with controversial backgrounds and at one time a person who had even been investigated by the police, while many are not themselves working journalists.
Conspicuous by his absence, though, is our own Editor Welshman Phil Parry who spent 23 years with the BBC, has been in journalism in Wales since 1983, and has won numerous awards. The Eye has no Welsh Government (WG) funding as this would compromise independent public interest journalism, yet a representative from the website was not included on the panel.
Despite this, the report declares: “We believe…Public interest journalism must be able to operate independently, without fear or favour, and therefore separation between government and the fourth estate is vital”.
A one time member of the ‘working group’ which made this noble pronouncement, although he has been investigated by the police, is Huw Marshall. We have shown how Mr Marshall had also made sick ‘jokes’ about a murdering gunman, used bad language to abuse prominent Welsh politicians on social media, tried to finish off this independent journalism website, and was officially reprimanded.
A police officer lost the sight in both eyes when rampaging gunman Raoul Moat shot him, but on July 8, 2010 – with Moat trying to escape from armed police – the man originally on the ‘working group’ (Mr Marshall) published a message on his Facebook (FB) page, reading: “Hi I’m a sexy 19 year old blond (sic) from the North East of England looking for some fun.
Following many other offensive comments, Mr Marshall was told off by Twitter because an account “violated the Twitter Rules”, and a further one, “Welsh Bollocks”, had also broken their regulations.
The abuse from him of senior Welsh politicians, came several years ago, with one of his remarks hurled at the Labour MS and former minister Ken Skates, while another was directed at the one time Liberal Democrat AM Peter Black. After Mr Skates tweeted in celebration of a single vote council by-election victory over Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru (PC) in Ruabon, Mr Marshall (who has himself stood for PC) referred to him in his own tweet as a “gloating t**t”, and he described Mr Black as a “humourless (sic) t..t”, as well as a “dull, tedious t..t”.
Apart from these sorts of remarks and the Twitter admonishment, it is thought that Mr Marshall may also have been responsible for sending unwanted takeaways to people’s homes, as well as other misdeeds. In response to the police inquiry into his actions, Mr Marshall said on Twitter that he had told South Wales Police (SWP) he intended to make a complaint, however officers answered by informing him that they had a “responsibility to investigate any reports”.
Following The Eye bringing this out, along with much of Mr Marshall’s other past behaviour, he attempted to have us closed down, alleging “violent threats and harassment”, when there have been no threats of violence from our journalists, and the only harassment has come from him after he used social media to dub senior Welsh politicians “t**ts”, and Phil a “liar”.
Evidently Mr Marshall does not know his journalist libel law either (which makes him a bizarre choice to be originally on a journalism ‘working group’), because , as well as calling Phil a “liar”, he has also said on Twitter that Phil is an “obsessive coward”, linking the inaccurate comments to an earlier piece about one of his failed ventures. Mr Marshall has also called Phil a “self proclaimed journalist”, which may not be libellous but is provably wrong as he trained to be a journalist on the best newspaper course in the UK before moving into television and radio.
Mr Marshall has said, as well, that he has a number of different Twitter accounts, but stesses he reserves one for items which may bother Phil, declaring: “@marshallmedia is where I post Everton related stuff and things that upsets Phil Parry”, which was the account which “violated the Twitter rules”.
In the months following this ruling, the huge organisation Newsquest Media Group (NMG) confirmed the closure of his ‘news’ website Corgi.Cymru (CC), saying the project was not “economically sustainable”. The termination of the service came just two months after NMG had also announced the axing of his The National Wales (TNW), a primarily English-launguage title launched on St David’s Day 2021.
As the Western Mail (WM) reported about its demise: “There are calls for a review of how £100,000 of public money was given to support the launch of a Welsh language news service that is to close five months later”. This is a reference to how taxpayer cash was funnelled into this journalism service through the Books Council of Wales [BCW] whose head Helgard Krause is also on the Welsh journalism panel. The BCW money for CC was one of two grants from them to fund Welsh language digital news services. The other was given to the established operator Golwg360, with each site due to receive £100,000 a year until 2026.
Mr Marshall claims to be an expert on the media despite all this. He has, though, admitted that he could not contribute to the final report, as he was taken off the group looking into the state of the Welsh media last year.
He said on Twitter: “…I was removed from the group by the other members in September”.
However the activities of another person who was still on the journalism ‘working group’ (Ifan Morgan Jones) is almost as worrying, and these key issues make him an unlikely choice to be included.
Nowhere in the details about him on his CV is mentioned qualifications by the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), the accepted body for formally accrediting journalists, and Dr Jones’ journalist students at the university where he works could be concerned about the fact that one of the basic planks of good news journalism is neutrality, especially when the website he founded and once edited claims it serves all “the people of Wales”, but it has been accused of pushing the agenda of Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru (PC).
An extremely disturbing description about the website he established (Nation.Cymru [NC]), on Wikipedia was that: “There is a wider feeling on social media sites where Nation articles are referenced that the website provides very narrow and subjective journalism. Many stories lack factual evidence and are regularly based on stretched concepts that seek to excite a perception of injustice to be directed at the wider UK Government and people of England”.
Perhaps for that “perception of injustice“ and for doubts about its ‘opinion’ pieces, NC could look to its own Facebook (FB) page, where it was accused of “… becoming a battering ram for extreme misguided information (and included) articles (which were designed) to stir up hatred in all….. instead of making us proud to be welsh”. Etc.
Another FB comment was: “It only takes a brief scan of this site to discover that it’s not what it claims to be. It’s Not a Welsh News outlet. This site is a biased Propaganda Outlet for Left Wing Independence activists and supporters. It’s not impartial or balanced in any way and it targets only a limited section of the Welsh public. An intolerant ‘Echo Chamber’ for Like minded people would be a far more accurate description”. A further one was: “Nation.Cymru claims to be some sort of independent & impartial news service for the people of Wales. It is clearly nothing of the sort. Judging by the articles it has published to date it is nothing more that (sic) another “echo chamber” for those on the left of Welsh politics who dream of an independent Wales. It clearly ticks all the boxes for Chairman Drakeford (the First Minister of Wales) Is that why NC has received public money from the Sennedd (sic) ????”.
These announcements follow earlier criticism of NC on its FB site, with one detractor saying the site is “biased”. It does, though, appear to attract support in extremist circles, with comments about burning down holiday homes, and it has been revealed that key workers property was targeted.
One critical observation on NC’s FB platform was: “It’s a biased online site for some of the people of Wales”. A further outraged remark was: “If people are going to criticise one group they need to consider the actions of others, otherwise its called hypocrisy… we need to ensure all sides play by the rules”.
Dr Jones’ former website (NC) has boosted the Welsh independence movement by saying, for example, “Support for Welsh independence has risen again”, because it was at 11 per cent whereas the previous year it was seven per cent. Meanwhile NC’s lack of journalistic neutrality has been shown by the fact that it failed to cover the astonishing news that PC did not declare large amounts of money, but DID publish a piece about the UK Tory party showing it in an extremely bad light, and another prominent item saying “Conservative AM has accepted more free international rugby tickets than any other UK politician”.
One NC ‘news’ piece said that: “The county of Gwynedd in the north-west has seen the largest collapse in consumer spending as a result of Covid-19 in both Wales and England, according to business data”, while another attacked the whole idea of second homes, which is a policy plank of PC.
Yet one aggrieved writer hit back and said: “I am genuinely concerned by the amount of vitriol that comes out in the comments on the Nation.Cymru posts, and it makes me feel that we are uncomfortably close to the political posturing of 1930s Berlin. We have had property damage (mostly to key workers cars) and threats and insults made to people (again, often keyworkers going about their legitimate business) because “they’re not from round here.””
The article on NC criticising second homes, also appeared to have Covid-19 in its sights, and began: “If it’s ‘coronavirus holiday’ season in rural Wales, the forecast is frosty for second home owners”, adding: “From spreading the virus and skipping lockdown to unfairly claiming business relief, second home owners have had bad pandemic press”.
A lengthy ‘report’ about the Conservative Party on the website said: “More than half of donations received by new Conservative MPs in Wales came from secretive fundraising clubs based in the south-east of England”. However the story that NC omitted to cover, but received huge media attention in other outlets, was that PC had been fined tens of thousands of pounds after not declaring money from public coffers.
This was The BBC report: “Plaid Cymru has been fined £29,000 for failing to report cash it received from taxpayers’ funds worth nearly £500,000. The Electoral Commission said over a two-year period Plaid had omitted 36 separate sums from quarterly reports. Plaid had failed to declare cash from the House of Commons authorities, and some cash from the Electoral Commission”.
The fundamental issue of neutrality in news journalism, may be hard for Dr Jones to challenge.
He put on FB a picture of a postal ballot paper, with his pen pointing at the PC candidate, and has posted a photograph of himself and his partner above the slogan “I’m voting Plaid Cymru”. In July 2016 he helped promote a rally for Welsh independence in Caernarfon and said that Wales: “faced being part of a state which (is) being politically neglected”.
Dr Jones has said in the past that he is keen to receive more money for NC than just public cash, as a tweet to the Hollywood superstar Michael Sheen has made transparent, and on the website he founded he has urged readers: “If just everyone who had attended the Yes Cymru march (in support of Welsh independence) over the last year gave us £5 a month we would be raising over half a million pounds a year”.
Perhaps these are the sort of headlines that earn you a place on a ‘working group’ for journalism in Wales.
it seems so…
Details of Phil’s astonishing decades-long journalistic career (when he was NEVER included on a journalism ‘working group’), as he was gripped by the rare neurological condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in an important book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now.
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – how the future for the car battery industry may look bright today, but news that a major firm could site its new factory in the west country only serves to underline the huge disappointment among policy-makers that a company where one of its original founders was an associate of a fraudster pulled out of Wales.
